Gwern Branwen is an independent web researcher. He has written a number of essays in various niches. However, his special interests tend to be writing about the darknet markets, bitcoin, self-experiments on sleep and cognition, statistical analyses of unexpected topics, anime, short stories, and everything in between. The unique thought process that goes into his writing is astounding and recently, he has written about the archives of darknet markets. These markets are hosted as Tor hidden services offering escrow services between vendors and buyers. The transactions occur in bitcoin currency or cryptocoins, typically for drugs and other illicit or unregulated goods and services. A good example of this is the 2011 pioneer business called the Silk Road. In the archives of darknet markets, Gwern covers 89 darknet markets and more than 37 related forums. The amount of time it took in researching was quite substantial and the amount of data and information that came out of it is equally astoundingly large. The focus of the research into darknet markets was generally their characteristics, usage, and legal riskiness.

Among the covered subjects of topic are various markets and forums including FreeBay, BlackBank Market, Tortuga 2, Nucleus, Onionshop, Cloud9, and Agora.

Agora URL

The Agora URL is currently the largest online darknet market. The Agora Market offers normal escrow services. In order to register to the Agora URL, it is required that the individual wanting to join has an invite or “referral link”. The Agora URL launched in 2013 and surpassed Silk Road 2.0 in terms of product listings a year after. All transactions in this platform are conducted by bitcoin. In the same year, Operation Onymous took the darknet market world by storm in the raid and seizures of numerous darknet markets. One of the affected markets in the raid was the Silk Road 2.0. Regardless of the international crackdown on online drug markets, the Agora URL was unaffected and has remained with the same stature of operations.

The anonymous and hidden nature of the site has made it possible for a number of transactions to take place between users. The fact that the transactions require a virtual currency is a contributor to the success of the online black market. It requires no divulging of personal information such as credit cards. Also, operating under hidden existence is another factor of why it has been thriving and continuing to grow.